


sickness

by eating_custardinbed



Series: The Internet Made Me Write It [15]
Category: IT Crowd
Genre: Chicken Pox, Cute, Established Relationship, Fluff, Fluffy, Jen has a kid for plot purposes, M/M, One Shot, Short, Short & Sweet, Short One Shot, Sickfic, request, turns out moss is a nightmare when he's ill, we don't question it okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:48:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28484901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eating_custardinbed/pseuds/eating_custardinbed
Summary: moss is sick and he doesn't want to admit it
Relationships: Maurice Moss/Roy Trenneman
Series: The Internet Made Me Write It [15]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1990789
Comments: 2
Kudos: 20





	sickness

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Anonymous](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anonymous/gifts).



> this a request from a lovely anon on tumblr!!! thank you my lovely, i hope you enjoy this!! also i decided not to go for a cold/the flu because that's always kinda done, so i've gone for a different illness. i hope it's okay!!!

Roy first noticed it when they were sat watching telly together. 

It wasn't something that most people would have noticed or thought too much about, not unless they were looking rather closely or concentrating hard. Roy hadn't _meant_ to be concentrating on his boyfriend. In fact he was supposed to be watching the telly. Thing was, it was something both he and Moss had seen a million times and knew like the back of their hands, and his boyfriend was just too damn beautiful not to look at. 

However, there was another reason. Moss had been a bit sniffly and miserable the past few days, but both of them had been putting it down to the cold that was going around the building. At some point that day, though, Moss had all of a sudden stopped looking up. It sounds ludicrous, but it was entirely true. He had been staring at the ground or his desk whenever he was speaking, and focusing on his computer with his head bent low when he wasn't. Ever since they'd got home he'd been sat with his hoodie on, hood firmly up as he angled his head away from his boyfriend. 

And he kept scratching. 

Well, not scratching as such. It was more a sort of constant fidgeting, almost like he was uncomfortable or in pain. In particular he kept reaching up and scratching the base of his neck, almost his shoulder rather than his neck, but it was constant and kept catching Roy's eye. At first he could ignore it, but it soon became constant enough for him to wonder about it. 

"Why do you keep scratching your neck like that?" Roy asked after nearly twenty minutes of watching his boyfriend go through this cycle. Moss didn't turn to look at him. If anything, he twisted further away from him. 

"I'm not!" he cried.

"What, yeah you are," Roy said, confused. He shifted again so that he was closer to his boyfriend. 

"No, I'm not," Moss insisted. His voice was muffled by his hoodie. 

"Babe, there's no point arguing about it, I've been watchin' you for the last twenty minutes," Roy replied. He shifted forward. "What's going on?" 

"I'm fine!" was Moss' frantic answer. 

This immediately told Roy that his boyfriend was decidedly not fine. Moss had a tendency to lie and lie and swear he was absolutely fine and dandy right up until the point where he was collapsing at Roy's feet when he was ill. When he actually _was_ fine, he would never use that word, instead usually opting to say that he was okay or good. Roy wasn't sure if it was strange that he noticed that, but he decided to push that to the side for now. 

"Sweetheart," he said softly. He reached forward to rest his hand on his boyfriend's arm, but before he could Moss jerked away. Roy looked at him in shock for a moment. "What's wrong?" 

"Promise you won't freak out?" Moss said, his voice miserable, after a pause. Roy furrowed his brow. 

"Of course not." 

Moss sighed. It took a moment, but eventually he took his hood down and turned to look at his boyfriend. 

He was covered in red bumps. They were all over his face, going all down his neck and disappearing under his hoodie. Roy gasped, putting a hand over his mouth. 

"Remember how Jen said there was chickenpox going around Oliver's school?" Moss said. He made a face as he gestured to himself. 

"Jesus Christ, why didn't you say anything earlier!?" Roy exclaimed. 

"I thought it would go away," Moss admitted. Roy gaped at him. 

"You thought chickenpox would _just go away_!?" he said. Moss nodded. 

"Well I've never had it, I don't know!" he exclaimed when Roy gave him a disbelieving look. 

"How did you never have chickenpox as a kid?" Roy asked. Moss shrugged. 

"It must have just never gone around at my school." There was a pause. "Have you?" 

"Yeah, when I was about seven," Roy said. Then he grimaced. "Oh sweetheart, you're going to be miserable." 

"What?" Moss said. Roy shook his head as he got up, heading towards the bedroom. "You can't say _that_ and then just leave!" Moss shouted after him. 

After a minute, Roy returned. In his hands he was holding a pair of mittens. They were the ones his mother had sent him for Christmas, despite the fact she'd explained to her _multiple_ times that mittens were not required in London. Moss gave him a strange look, but Roy just came over and dropped them on his lap. 

"Put them on," he instructed. Moss shook his head, giving Roy an even stranger look. "You think they're itchy now, give it a few hours. So put them on so you can't itch." 

"Why can't I itch them?" Moss asked as he raised his hand to itch a spot on his neck. Roy batted his hand away. 

" _Because_ ," he said as he gently took Moss' hand and forced a mitten onto it. "You'll get an infection. And I don't want you sick for any longer than necessary." 

Moss nodded. The back of his neck was itching something horrible. As Roy put the mitten on his other head, he reached up and tried to itch. Sure enough, all he could do was rub them slightly, which did nothing to actually help. He pouted as he looked back to his boyfriend. "Don't give me that look, it's for your own good," Roy said. "How do you feel?" 

For a moment, Moss thought about lying and saying that he was fine, but he already knew that the game was up. He sighed, swinging his legs up and resting them on Roy's lap. 

"Achy," he said. "A bit sick. Just generally ill." 

Roy reached forward, resting the back of his hand on his boyfriend's forehead. 

"You're a bit warm," he said. The two of them sighed together, and then giggled. Roy gave his boyfriend an apologetic look. "Looks like you're stuck here for the next two weeks." 

"What?" Moss asked, confused. 

"Chickenpox is really infectious," Roy said. Moss pouted, folding his arms across his chest. Roy chuckled, gently patting him on the leg. "Sorry, love." 

Moss glared at him and rolled over to bury his face in the sofa cushions. 

***

It was the middle of the night, and Moss was _not_ a happy bunny. 

"Roy, I am on _fire_ ," Moss said in a very matter-of-fact way. He was lying on the sofa in no more than his pyjama trousers, and had been tossing and turning for the past few hours. Roy was lying on air mattress on the floor next to him. He'd been trying to get to sleep since ten, but Moss' relentless grumbling had made that impossible. At this particular one Roy tried his best not to groan in annoyance, instead settling for pulling his sheet over his head and opening his mouth in a silent scream. 

"You're not on fire," he said in a muffled voice. 

"I am," Moss said. "I'm on fire and you won't let me take these mittens off to stop it." 

"Because I don't want you getting even more sick," the Irishman replied through gritted teeth. _He's sick,_ he reminded himself. Lord knows he had to keep reminding himself that. 

"If I go insane and die from being on fire, it's your fault," Moss mumbled. Roy rolled his eyes, forcing himself to prop himself up on his elbow and check on his boyfriend. Moss was now lying on his side looking right at him. He looked thoroughly miserable. One mittened hand was scrabbling at his side. Roy reached up, gently moving his hand away. He could feel the heat coming off of his boyfriend. 

"You're not going to die," he said softly. "You're gonna be sick for a week or so, but then you'll be fine." 

"I can't be like this for a _week_ ," Moss said. He sounded a little desperate. 

"I'm sorry," Roy said. 

"I'm going to go mental," the other murmured. "I'm actually going to go insane." 

_Same,_ Roy thought as he let himself fall back onto the air mattress. 

***

"Roy!"

Screw Moss going insane, Roy was pretty sure he was going to start screaming and then never stop if this kept up. 

"What?" he called out from the kitchen. He winced as he heard his voice break. Moss had only got worse since last night. The spots had now blistered over and so were intensely itchy, much more than they had been before. As soon as Roy was out of sight Moss would rip the mittens off and set about itching all the worst spots. Roy was in half a mind to duct tape the mittens to his boyfriend's hands. Since Moss knew Roy could see him from the kitchen, he hadn't done that this time. 

"Is there _nothing_ you can do to stop the itching?" Moss called back. 

Roy had to admit that his heart did go out to him a bit there. His boyfriend may have been a ~~bit of~~ lot of a pain in the arse over the past day or so, but he must have been utterly depressed about his state of affairs. They had tried an oatmeal bath earlier. It had involved a lot of Googling, half an hour bashing some oats to get them at the right consistency and then Roy two hours to get it all out of the bath, but apparently it had stopped the itching. 

For all of four minutes and twenty-three seconds. 

Letting out a sigh, Roy pulled out his phone. Surely there was something else they could do that didn't involve fucking oatmeal!? According to his quick Google search, Benadryl could work. As well as helping the itching, it might send Moss to sleep for a bit. _Some fucking peace and quiet,_ Roy thought, and then instantly felt terrible about thinking it. 

"Tea," he said as he handed his boyfriend the mug when he went back into the living room. Moss murmured a quiet _thank you,_ taking a slow sip. 

"I need to stop this, _soon_ ," he said. Roy closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. He desperately didn't want to snap at his boyfriend, but he was running on very little sleep and he could feel himself about to snap. "It's like--it's like it's making everything else ten times louder and brighter but also it won't let me concentrate on anything else. I can't sleep, I can't watch the TV, I can't do _anything_ except think about how itchy it is." 

"I'm sorry, sweetheart," Roy said. Then he remembered what he'd read. "What about taking a Benadryl? Apparently it's supposed to help." 

"At this point I'd take horse tranquiliser if it helped," Moss grumbled. Roy took that as a yes. He got up, heading to the kitchen and grabbing the Benadryl packet out of the medicine box in there. He came back to the living room, handing it to Moss who quickly popped two pills out and took them with a gulp of tea. 

When his boyfriend dropped off to sleep ten minutes later, Roy was sure he could have cried with relief. 

***

Moss remained miserable for the next week, but once the blisters began to scab over on the third or so day and the itching lessened he became less irritable. As he explained to Roy, the itching really pushed his senses to the limits, and as someone who could barely handle the labels on his clothes it was particularly hard to deal with. Roy understood, of course he did, but it didn't stop him feeling just a little bit annoyed at certain points. After all, he was only human. When Jen had facetimed them to see how they were doing, Moss had simply called her "Typhoid Mary" and had then refused to speak to her for five minutes until he got over himself. Apparently work was insane without them. The computers were barely functioning without Roy there to tell the clientele to turn them off and on again. They both chose not to dwell on that too much. 

"I'm sorry," Moss said one night as they lay in bed watching a film. As he reached up to scratch a scab on his neck Roy batted his hand away. 

"What for?" Roy asked. He took Moss' hands in his so his boyfriend couldn't itch. 

"Being such a grump this past week," Moss replied. "It's not your fault I'm ill." 

"Thank y--" 

"It's Jen's." 

Roy couldn't help but laugh at that. He raised Moss' hands to his lips, pressing a small kiss to them. 

"Sure," he said, trying not to layer on the sarcasm _too_ thickly. Moss knew him well enough to know he was doing so, though, and rolled his eyes at him. "I'm sorry, love. Of course it's her fault." 

"It ruddy well is," Moss mumbled as he snuggled down next to his boyfriend. 

Roy did his best not to burst into giggles at that. 

**Author's Note:**

> thankyou so much for reading!!! please leave comments and/or kudos if you can, they make me so happy!!!
> 
> stay safe and happy, y'all xx


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